My Boxee Box
I was always fighting with my perfect home-theater idea, most of my setups based on low end devices that suppose deliver something always were failing here and there. On the other side I've always want to have a development server that I can upload my small projects (a real *nix box sitting in the corner) and maybe a backup then as well (through rsync). In the last year I was looking at couple projects like MythTV and XBMC, but still part missing here was hardware. Having desktop kind PC, just blowing air is not something you would like to have your livingroom (and it's not making your family happier) but rather on desk or hidden somewhere in the cabinet.
But finally I've found a box and a software that fulfill my needs with Boxee and Asrock ION 330 nettop.
Why Boxee? First of all I was looking only on open source software and basically there are two good players left on the field Boxee and XMBC as I see now. Well... almost, cause they are basically the same software (Boxee is build on top of XBMC). Boxee looked like most straight forward, plays any format I can think of, do video & audio rss and have tons of apps. It caught my eye for some time as I was waiting for original Boxee Box which look pretty awesome. But still time will come to check out XBMC and possibly Moovida (previously Elisa, Fluendo project). I'm not taking MythTV under consideration cause I'm not interested in recording.
Why Asrock? It's a slick device, small, quiet but still powerful for this particular need. Easily handle 720p and possibly 1080p video files ( can't test it, my TV can do only 720p ) and HDMI output. My version ION 330 HT comes with 2GB RAM, 320GB HDD and ... ir remote. Enough and remote is nice extra feature that I would buy anyway. All for less than 300E.
Text messages from terminal.
I'm testing new GSM modem which then I'm going to use as a SMS gateway. But before I'm going to start coding I need to be able to check if box is doing all the things that I would expect.
The SMS specification has defined a way for a computer to send SMS messages through a GSM modem ( or mobile phone). GSM modem is really similar with approach as a regular copper modem. After connecting a GSM modem to a computer, you can control it by sending AT instructions. In addition to this common set of standard AT commands, GSM modems support an extended set of AT commands. One use of the extended AT commands are for control of sending and receiving of SMS messages. To establish connection I use minicom.
So lets go:
1. First try to check if modem is responding:
AT
OK
2. Then I need to supply PIN:
AT+CPIN="XXXX"
READY
3. The AT command +CMGF is used to instruct the modem to operate in SMS text mode. Result OK indicates the command line "AT+CMGF=1" has been executed successfully. If the result code "ERROR" is returned, it is likely that modem does not support text mode. To check, type "AT+CMGF?" in the terminal. If the response is "+CMGF: (0,1)" (0=PDU mode and 1=text mode), then SMS text mode is supported. If the response is "+CMGF: (0)", then SMS text mode is not supported. When you type in your message you have to end it up with CTRL+Z key combination. CMGW response is important also indicates location in sending queue ( on modem storage ) which we will use in next command.
AT+CMGW="+31XXXXXXXXX"
> TEST
+CMGW: 1
OK
4. The AT command +CMSS is used to send the SMS text message from the message storage of the GSM modem. "1" is the index of the SMS text message obtained from previous line. It could be 20 as well or any other number. Maximum depends on how big storage on modem is. The CMSS response is just reference number.
AT+CMSS=1
+CMSS: 12
OK
That's pretty much all about text messages. You probably already going to realize the first drawback of using GSM modem as SMS gateway - speed. Realistically you can't send more than 10 messages per minute. The performance is not affected by the connection between the computer and modem and does not depend on whether modem is used for voice.
Dropbox bez X
Jakiś czas temu otrzymałem zaproszenie do Dropbox od jednego z moich znajomych. Nie szczególnie się zainteresowałem kolejnym projektem pt. "Dysk sieciowy" szczególnie, że wtedy jedynym wspieranym systemem był Windows. Ostatnio jednak zainteresowałem się tym projektem ponownie ( głównie z powodu informacji, które płynęły z RSSów ) i jestem bardzo zaskoczony, projekt nie tylko urósł, ale także zaczął wspierać inne platformy co w finale przekonało mnie do przynajmniej spojrzenia w jego stronę. Chciałem wykorzystać go trochę nie zgodnie z przeznaczeniem, nie jednoosobowo ale jako narzędzie do dzielenia się plikami z najbliższymi ( bardzo nie technicznymi ). Jedyny problemem jaki napotkałem, to fakt że jest on dostarczany jako rozszerzenie do Gnomowego Nautiliusa, co dla nie Gnome użytkownika, może być problemem, ale wystarczy spojrzeć na zawartość i sposób działania programu aby dojść do wniosku że jednak się da żyć bez Gnome.
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Ściągamy wersję Linuksową klienta Dropboxa z http://www.getdropbox.com/download?plat=lnx.x86 lub http://www.getdropbox.com/download?plat=lnx.x86_64 dla wersji 64 bitowej.
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Rozpakujemy zawartość, będzie tam katalog .dropbox-dist, który przenosimy do katalogu domowego.
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Uruchamiamy demona ~/.dropbox-dist/dropboxd ... i viola.
Pierwsze uruchomienie dropboxd wymaga jednak X'ów, aby ustawić preferencje katalog itd. Domyślnie Dropbox synchronizuje katalog ~/Dropbox/. Na koniec wypadało by się upewnić, że dropboxd startuje automatycznie czy to w czasie logowania do terminala czy naszych nie Gnomowych X'ów. Dla pełności szczęścia na forum Dropboxa można znaleźć skrypty, które będą nas informować o statusie demona.
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Blip ( polish )
- (2010-09-01 19:51:00) Ha-Ha! "Uw creditcard voor Xbox Live maandelijks Gold-lidmaatschap is verlopen" Good for me, getaway from those bloody vampires.
- (2010-08-31 21:52:57) Time to say goodbye to xbox live: http://rdir.pl/ntrv5 q
- (2010-08-28 14:08:33) http://rdir.pl/nehpd cheap and easy laptop stand by ikea, nice hack
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